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The Cravers
Created by the Endless from an insectoid life form, the Cravers are in the purest sense hunter-gatherers who would never have independently evolved the systems and infrastructure needed to raise crops or domesticate animals. Their life cycle is based on consumption, and as such they are capable of digesting any form of plant or animal matter. As their home world is close to being consumed, they must leave in search of further nourishment. For if they do not continue to expand, discover, and exploit new worlds, their society will eat itself to death. Feeding the hive is their all-consuming purpose; the notions of 'treaty', 'trade', and 'peace' do not exist. Lore Leadership Though the Queen is the most important single member of the Craver hierarchy, she is not necessarily its leader or decision-maker as her time is spent in the production of future generations. Though she has an unquestionable right to veto and would be consulted in the case of extreme risk to the hive or a deadlock in the process, her importance is more social than political. The true leaders of Craver society are a caste known as Bishops; this small percentage of intellectually advanced Cravers forms the backbone of society and is responsible for decisions on construction, warfare, development, reproduction, and exploration. Homeworld It is difficult to define a homeworld for the Cravers, as they were an artificially created species. Much of the research was done on the Virtual world Bejek, but as they were DNA patterns shared across the Virtual federation and vat-grown in numerous locations it is hard to determine a single site. Perhaps the best, if arbitrary, definition of a homeworld would be the planetary factory of Kovanyuv, where many of them were created. Society The Queen could be viewed as the leader of the society, but only in the sense that she has the capacity to refuse plans proposed by the Bishops. She lacks a creative or directive role in the development of those plans, however, and simply passes judgment on them. In fact it is difficult to apply the concept of a political system to the Cravers, as a good two-thirds of their population barely have enough of a sense of individuality to understand the idea of casting a vote. Traits Note: The "slaver driver" and "depletion" mechanics are both a bit unclear, so here's some detail on how they work: Depletion Before a planet with Cravers reaches the "Depleted" status, no matter how close to Depletion it is, it will receive a massive bonus. *The bonus is an additional 150% (x2.5 or +150%), not a multiplicative x1.5. ** If the population would normally produce 10 , it will actually produce 25 . The bonus will be listed as 15; 10 + 15 = 25. **'The bonus applies to the sum-total value of all bonuses applied to that particular population unit, including the actual bonus yields from the population type' (such as extra from Haroshem). So any strategic resources on a planet (which may give a raw per-pop / bonus), any buildings that increase / per pop, etc., are all accounted for in this bonus. * This bonus only applies to Craver population units. ** It does not apply to other pop units owned by a Craver player. ** If your primary faction is not Craver, it also only applies to Cravers on your planets. * The bonus does not change as you approach zero. It stays at a constant value until the moment you reach zero, at which point it flips to a massive penalty. * Once a planet is fully Depleted, an individual population unit which would normally produce 10 instead produces 5. The total difference is a drop of FIVE TIMES (250% to 50%). The Depletion bonus does not include the resource. It's easy to miss the "I" at the end of the the "FIDS" acronym in the description. Each planet starts with (TODO) Depletion points, which are hidden by default and are only indirectly revealed by showing the number of turns remaining before the planet is Depleted. The internal count of "Depletion points" can only be inferred from this number of turns shown, and the fact that Cravers consume one Depletion point per turn, per pop. Slavery Slavery works the same way as Depletion with regards to which values are amplified (such as from buildings, strategic resources, and inherent pop bonuses). Slavery is triggered by placing at least one Craver on a planet with non-Cravers. It does not stack; adding more than one Craver pop does not increase the bonus on the planet... it's just a fixed on/off toggle caused by having at least one present. When active, the Craver population triggering it will be subtly highlighted with a gold-tinged background, and the bonus applies to all non-Craver populations on that planet. Since this has no permanent cost (unlike depletion, and besides the fact that that one Craver will be applying its normal depletion mechanic to the planet), you're heavily encouraged to micromanage which populations are resident on which planets so that you always have at least one Craver unit on each planet. The only reason you would not want to do this is the rather large -10 per each enslaved pop. Unlike Depletion, the Slavery mechanic is not intrinsic to the Craver population type. If you're a non-Craver faction and you conquer/acquire Craver population units, they will not apply anything related to the Slavery mechanic. Slavery + Depletion Overlap The Slavery and Depletion mechanics mostly do not interact, because they're perfectly set up to only apply to opposite population types; only Craver pop units get the Depletion bonus, and only non-Craver pop units get the Slavery bonus. The one place where they interact is the Depletion Penalty (which applies to all pop units) and the Slavery bonus; once a planet is depleted, the Cravers can still 'slave drive' the non-Craver populations to produce extra resources. The implication of this is that, once depleted, Craver planets are better off having a minority of actual Cravers on them (outside of the penalty, which can be worked around with laws). Population Traits Political Traits Ships Cravers have a hidden faction modifier (not listed in their faction traits) which makes all Craver ships have 10% less HP than equivalent ships of other factions, but also makes them cost 10% less. 'Note: '''This is filled out with out-of-date info from before the fighters-and-bombers patch. It's far better than nothing, but the Coordinator and Carrier won't be accurate until someone doing a new playthrough updates the info (it is also possible they changed the values for other ships during the update). Colonizer Strategic Implications: This is in the exact same bag as the Sophon colonizer; three Utility slots, and nothing else. Since it's not a Sophon ship, though, it's only 3 movement speed instead of 5. Explorer Strategic Implications: This has poor potential as a "pure exploration" ship because you only have two slots. You will never be very fast compared to other faction's scout ships, and you'll be even slower if you equip any probes. With two attack modules, and, potentially, one defense module, this can be a very respectable early-game fighter, especially given the Craver's discount on ships. Attacker Strategic Implications This is a fairly well-rounded ship; it's got a potential for 4 attack slots, but it's also fairly durable. It has 4 potential engine slots, one of which is locked behind the upgrade. Protector Strategic Implications This is fairly balanced; it can equip a bunch of defense slots to take on a full protector/tank role (4 in total), but can also field 2 attack slots. Can equip a total of 5 engines, though 3 of these are locked behind the upgrade. Coordinator Strategic Implications Has a rather high loadout of 3 squadron modules. Potentially has 5 defense modules, none of which have contention with the squadron modules, but some of which do have contention with potential engine/utility slots. Has 5 potential engine slots, only one of which is locked behind the upgrade. Two of these double as defense, though. Unlike most other factions, all of the Coordinator, Hunter, Protector, and Carriers of the Cravers all can run at least 5 engines, and even the Attack can fit 4, so your entire fleet can be fast without leaving certain ship classes behind. Hunter Strategic Implications It's a little light on attack slots, but perhaps makes up for it with a lot of utility slots (which of course can be used for damage amplifiers and such). In total, there are 5 utility slots, and hence, 5 potential engine slots, so this is considerably faster than most Hunter-tier ships. Carrier '''Note: ' I haven't actually played the Cravers recently, so I don't know which upgraded slots are / . Anyone who can clarify that is welcome to. Strategic Implications Has only 3 Squadron Modules, Potentially has 8 Utility modules (engines or otherwise), though you'd be eating quite a ways into offense/defense capabilities if you used them all as such, since 2 of the 3 squadron modules double as utility. Can potentially have a very high 7 Defense modules, though again the caveat that "you're reducing the capability of the ship to do other things" applies. Overall a very flexible ship due to the multi-purpose modules. Faction quest rewards Strategy Lacking in any and all forms of peaceful diplomacy beyond declaring ceasefires during war and with the ticking time-bomb that is resource depletion hovering over their heads, the Cravers have only two courses of action to follow, rapid colonial expansion and swarming the other civilizations of the galaxy. They are generally a challenging faction to play through. Because of their depletion mechanic, you should distribute Craver populations across different planets to reduce the rate a planet is depleted and ultimately produces very little resources. Since other populations dislike sharing a planet with Craver populations (though they tend to have higher ), you should watch system and should it get too low (despite buildings), consider sacrificing the other population into feeding pits to boost rating. See also Cravers Faction Quest Category:Factions